Oxytocin: More Than Just a "Love Hormone"

Oxytocin may enhance the different romantic priorities of men and women.

Oxytocin is a chemical produced in the brain during sex, childbirth, and breast-feeding. Research has shown that the so-called “love hormone” promotes bonding and other forms of social behavior.

But the idea that this neurotransmitter works as some sort of natural love potion is too simple. The effects of oxytocin may be more complex than we once thought.

Lei Xu, a psychologist at the Clinical Hospital of Chengdu, recently investigated the effects of oxytocin on partner preferences. Do we find different people more or less attractive after a dose of oxytocin?

Xu had 160 straight volunteers report to her lab. Half of these volunteers had a shot of oxytocin blasted up their nose; the other half received a placebo. Neither the volunteers nor the research assistant administering the doses knew whether each spray contained oxytocin or the placebo with no active ingredient. Afterward, the volunteers were unable to accurately guess whether they had received oxytocin or the placebo.

Next, the male volunteers were shown a series of portrait photographs of women, while the female volunteers saw photos of men. Each photo was paired with a statement about the person’s history of cheating. The person was described as someone who had committed a sexual or an emotional infidelity, or as someone who had never cheated.

Afterward, the volunteers indicated whether they would be willing to date each person.

Different effects on men and women

Although you might think that cheating is unattractive to both men and women, Xu found that 32% of men and 17% of women were interested in a short-term relationship with a former cheater. A cheater may not generally be considered a catch, but under certain circumstances men seem less perturbed than women by the prospect of an unfaithful partner, perhaps because men assume a woman who cheats will be easier to woo.

Xu also found that men who had been given oxytocin, compared to men who received the placebo, expressed a stronger desire to date women who had previously been unfaithful. There was no equivalent effect of oxytocin on the female volunteers, but oxytocin did increase women’s interest in long-term relationships with faithful men.

In short, oxytocin didn’t simply turn men and women lovey-dovey; instead, it promoted the pre-existing sex differences in men's and women’s preferences for faithful and unfaithful partners.

Xu and her colleagues write in their paper that their findings supported their theory that “oxytocin would enhance current social and reproductive priorities in both sexes."

Another finding was that women who had received a dose of oxytocin were more likely to remember the faces of men who were labeled faithful.

Brilliant information but not very surprised by the outcome of the experiment as nature designed males to have multiple sexual partners as promiscuity increases male reproductive success while females are evolved to be monogamous especially if they are dependent on males for parental support, mate protection and provision of adequate resources in the upbringing of offspring like among humans.

Hence, this is just another additional empirical evidence among the numerous evidences that support the very opposing sexual natures existing in men and women.

Essentially infidelity is a concept based on human values and does not actually have any real biological basis attached to such concepts.
Thus, in my opinion, 'cheating male sexual partner' among humans is somewhat a nonsensical concept and is inherently quite restrictive from a male sexual behaviour point of view particularly for males living in non patriarchal societies where female sexuality is supposedly "librated".

Firstly, the evidence is clear that both men and women are adapted to pursue both long- and short-term relationships. Yes, men may be more likely to pursue flings for the reasons you state, but I think it is easy to exaggerate the difference. Basically, there are clear advantages to men pursuing long-term relationships (to invest in offspring) and to women pursuing short-term relationships (seeking replacement partners, or higher value partners).

Secondly, although what constitutes cheating will vary based on human culture, I don't agree that there is no biological basis for it. Many other species are socially monogamous in the sense that they form pair bonds between two individuals, but they also pursue "extra pair copulations" with other partners. Importantly, the primary partner tends not to like this: the 'cheater' is often furtive rather than open, and their primary partner will punish them or their secondary partner if the 'affair' is discovered.

These animals seem to act as though they understand the concept of cheating, and so I would argue humans aren't all that unusual in this regard.

In regards to the first point, you may have misunderstood me mate, I didn't actually imply in anyway that males were not adapted for long-term relationship, of course they are and this fact particularly holds true among humans as paternal care is absolutely essential for the optimal development of offspring.
Nonetheless, sexual desires, motives and inclinations that are adaptive for men obstruct reproduction for women, while those that are adaptive for women obstruct reproduction for men. This is because the sexual natures between men and women are not merely 'different' but both the sexual natures are fairly oppositional instead, the fundamental principle of sexual reproduction I suppose.

Yes, these sex differences can be partially obscured by society's prescribed moral codes, social norms and importantly by the compromises inherent in the sexual relational dynamics between the sexes but these differences certainly cannot be easily exaggerated, let alone ignored. If ever they're usually downplayed, often for social and political reasons.

Therefore if men invested in long term relationship such as monogamous marriages, then men will be highly motivated to control female sexuality as they should in my view and female involvement in short term relationships will be notably reduced due to vigilant mate guarding by the males. Intense male sexual jealousy also would be expressed towards any females that were suspected of sexual infidelity, and if I am not wrong, sexual infidelity is the major cause for females to be killed by males. This type of gender relationship along with committed relationships, widespread virginity, high value placed on female sexuality, faithful partners, early marriage including sustained birth rates are commonly seen in patriarchal societies or if overall numbers of men exceed women.
In addition, studies show male violence and domestic violence incidents will be low. Such sexual norms and behaviours are predominantly conform to female sexuality but at the expense of being fairly controlled by males.

On the contrary, in societies where short sexual relationships is prevalent and female sexuality is somewhat regarded as permissive as seen in many affluent societies today especially in western nations, the involvement of men in long term relationship will be markedly decreased. Like the findings in this oxytocin study, sexual jealousy too was not a major feature among males having or desiring short term sexual relationship with promiscuous females as expected I suppose.
Thus, now sexual norms including sexual behaviours will conform and be dictated according to male sexual preference, such as plenty of casual sex opportunities, delayed marriages, extradyadic copulations, extensive prostitution availability and pornography products. In addition, there will be increase of single mothers coupled with a notable drop in birth rates. Male violence including sexual violence against females like rapes will also increase. These sociosexual related features and phenomenons would somewhat accurately depicts many of the modern societies around the world today.

Therefore, these examples clearly show the two contrasting sexual behaviour manifestations among men and women when social circumstances are changed accordingly. And the contrasting sexual behaviour is based on inverse reproductive cost and capacity between the sexes which simply cannot be changed now and will definitely not change anytime soon. Period.

Sex is all about "give and take", one gender cannot just mimic the other gender's sexuality nor can it be a situation whereby one sex wants to "both have the cake and eat it too".

In regards, to the perceived "cheating" behavioural manifestations seen in animals most probably occurs as the consequences of differently evolved reproductive behaviors in males and females, assuming that male is the 'partner' having multiple sexual partners in your example. The primary female partner is perceived to "dislike partner's cheating" simply because her own biologically motivated self-interest is affected resulting in a "dislike/not happy" instinctive behavioural reaction.
However, if the male partner has both the reproductive capacity and resource providing ability allowing him to reproduce with more than one sexual partner which is driven by his own instinctive strong sexual urge, be it mating overtly or furtively, that behaviour then cannot be misconstrued as "cheating" by attaching a human moral value such as "dishonesty" to the dynamic gender relation. The inherent behaviour seen likely has a biological basis but identifying it as "cheating" socially and attaching a human subjective perception of moral "right" or "wrong" to the behaviour, certainly has no biological basis.
The female's instinctive "dislike" reaction is no more "right" than the male's instinctive sexual urge nor is the male's natural ability to mate with multiple sexual partners has an intrinsic "wrongful" notion attached to it from a pure biological and natural point of view.

In all honesty, I think males in this world have evolved predominantly just to have sex which explains evolved traits such as high sexual motive, guaranteed sexual pleasure in all sexual encounters, high reproductive capacity with very low reproductive cost and risk including increased reproductive success that correlates to increase in sexual partners.
Moreover, no empirical evidence that shows human males evolved to be sexually monogamous. This also the reason polygyny is fairly common in various cultures globally.

One of the fundamental problem in today's somewhat gynocentric centred societies, particularly seen in most affluent western nations, is there's frequent propagation of rather perverse and inherently fallacious sociopolitical concepts that claim, females should both enjoy the same sexual freedom that males have and also wanting to ensure the female relationship privileges like dictating sexual norms that only conform to female sexual preferences are preserved.

However, in regards to sex, women must first accept the hard fact that, they simply cannot enjoy "the best of both worlds", because the logic of this universe will not allow it.
Nature's has guaranteed the price of sex is incurred fairly by both genders via a reasonable "give and take" system which is ultimately designed to always preserve the optimal dynamic balance between both the sexes naturally. This is a fundamental and brilliant truth of nature that no person nor any sociopolitical concepts can violate freely.
The objective view of biological reality is often influenced strongly by human based subjective notions and values, distorting the actual perception of reality.

P.S. Sorry for the lengthy reply, just don't want to be misunderstood.